Friday, November 7, 2008

"The coalition government of Sweden has been dancing around a way to bring about a change in marriage law to allow for same-sex couples without offending one part of their coalition, the Christian Democrats. Now a solution appears to have been found.

Sweden’s four-party centre-right government has been split on the issue, with the junior partner Christian Democrats also opposed to the use of the word “marriage” for homosexual unions.

However the three other parties, the conservative Moderates, the Liberals and the Centre Party, are in favour of a gender neutral law that eliminates the current reference to marriage as something between a man and a woman.

The opposition Social Democrats, the country’s biggest party, also support such a law, and together the parties would garner enough support to adopt the legislation in parliament.

The process will be for the coalition government to propose a marriage bill that does not have gender-neutrality and for the parties that support marriage equality to amend that bill. The Prime Minister predicts passage and implementation by next year:

“The coalition government has agreed that we will present a basic marriage bill to parliament. The three parties in favour of a gender neutral marriage law will then present an accompanying motion seeking to have such a law in place by May 1, 2009,” Reinfeldt said.

Sweden was one of the first countries to allow for Registered Partnerships in 1995. They will be the seventh nation to offer same-sex marriage rights."

I'm a heterosexual from Sweden who ended up here by accident. But while I'm here I want to say that I hope the law will be in place this year as planned.And I hope it will lead to other countries (such as USA) changing their laws as well.

As a member of the Centre party mentioned above I can also add that we refused to change anything even when the Christian Democrats argued.

And to Brian;So sorry for what happened to your rights, I hope it'll change for the better again soon.